Breaking: James Arthur Ray, infamous "sweat lodge" guru, is dead

Notorious McSpirituality/selfish-help guru, star of the New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, and (in more recent times) devoted reich-wing conspiranoid Trumpster James Arthur Ray -- best known for his infamous deadly "sweat lodge" in Sedona, Arizona in 2009 -- passed away on the evening of January 3, 2025 [or more likely January 2; see January 7 update below]. Ray's brother John announced it on a pinned post on Ray's Xitter timeline. No cause of death was given; the brother only said that Ray passed away "suddenly and unexpectedly."

If I had to guess the cause offhand, I'd say that long term anabolic steroid use finally caught up with him. But that is pure speculation on my part, so don't quote me. I really do not know. I will update when/if I find out. I did notice that Ray's brother said that Ray's wish was to be cremated and that he didn't want people to make a big fuss about his death. I wonder if there is even going to be an autopsy, and if not... why? That might be something worth exploring, though at this point it's a little early.

So far, as I'm writing this at nearly 10:30 PM Central Standard Time, the news media do not seem to have gotten wind of the news; if you Google or Bing "James Arthur Ray death," you just get scads of results about the deaths he caused and for which he was convicted and imprisoned for a couple of years, not his own death. Nor is Ray's passing mentioned yet on his Wikipedia page.
[NOTE: SEE UPDATES AT THE END OF THIS POST. ~CC]

But some folks were paying attention, and that's how I learned about Ray's demise. Through their organization, Seek Safely, the family of Kirby Brown, one of Ray's Sedona death lodge victims, made a statement, which said in part:

While there could be some small measure of relief in knowing that Ray will no longer be able to harm anyone, it is, truly, very little comfort. It became clear to us early on after Kirby’s passing that Ray was just one operator in a multi-billion dollar per year industry built on the exploitation of those who would improve their lives and find fulfillment. The rot in this industry has always been much greater and more complex than the actions of a single so-called “guru.” James Ray was one among countless exploitative and dangerous self-help providers. SEEK Safely was founded in this reality—that an entire industry, not just one man, was responsible for Kirby’s death.

Greater than any sense of relief is a feeling of disappointment that Ray could have played a unique role in helping to define both the problems and the solutions for this industry. But rather than demonstrating true transformation, he remained stuck in the paradigm of an industry built on manipulation and mistruth.

We can only, at this juncture, remind seekers that no “guru,” or program, or mindset is larger than life or without fault. That a journey of self-improvement is noble and vulnerable. That we must always remain in charge of that process of growth and change, rooted in our values, our worth, and our right to seek free from harm.

That's exactly right. Ray's death won't clear an entire industry of its rot, any more than Trump's eventual demise will, after all the years of damage, clear America and the world of Trumpism/fascism. There are no neat and tidy endings.

While it would be inaccurate and certainly crass for me to say that I am giddy about James Arthur Ray's passing, it would also be inaccurate for me to say that I'm sad about it. Ray had many chances to try to redeem himself after causing the deaths of his followers; instead, he never stopped making their deaths all about him and the wrongs he had suffered because people were unfairly blaming him for "a tragic accident." Now, on the surface it may have seemed that he took responsibility, especially since the introduction to a book he penned a few years ago, The Business of Redemption, began with the sentence, "I am responsible for the deaths of three people." Then he goes on to write about how deeply this hurts him every single day.

But instead of actually taking responsibility, he found ways to crapitalize on his imagined status as a drawn-and-quartered martyr: a survivor of a trial by fire (literally and figuratively) who was abundantly qualified to guide others, for a hefty price of course, on their own journeys from darkness back to light. And he was still flogging that hero narrative to the end. In December 2024 he was featured on a conspiranoia/alt-health podcast called The Ripple Effect, hosted by a guy named Ricky Varandas; the blurb for the promo clip on Varandas' TwitterX page read, "From Prison to Purpose: My Hero's Journey to Redemption." Gimme a break.

I know that Ray had people who loved him. But again, I would be lying if I were to say that I'm sorry he's gone. 

UPDATE 5 January 2025:

• Some of the Arizona news media have picked up on the story since I published this post last night (January 4, 2025) at 10:43 PM Central Standard Time. NBC affiliate 12 News (KPNX, serving the greater Phoenix area) posted news about James Arthur Ray's death on Saturday night, January 4, at 10:25 PM Mountain Standard Time (11:25 PM my time), and updated it at 11:10 PM MST (12:10 AM January 5 my time). No cause of death has been mentioned as of this time. News 12 cited the same sources I did: the Xitter statement by Ray's brother John, and the Seek Safely statement.
• AZ Central (Arizona Republic) posted a brief story as well today, January 5, at about 3:30 PM my time (2:30 Mountain Standard Time). As was the case with the 12 News story, the only sources cited were the Xitter statement by Ray's brother, and the Seek Safely statement. No cause of death has been mentioned as of this time.
• The Wikipedia page for James Arthur Ray was updated on the morning of January 5, 2025, and now mentions his death, but only the date; the source cited is the Arizona News 12 story listed above. No cause of death has been mentioned as of this time.

UPDATE 6 January 2025:

Some former followers who knew James Ray personally have privately speculated to me that his death might have been due to drug overdose or interaction. And some folks, myself included, have not been above wondering, if only in passing, if perhaps Ray was in some deep trouble and, with the help of his family, faked his own death. That sort of scenario is normally a little bit conspiranoid for my taste, but sometimes you just wonder...

In any case, AP finally got hold of the story today, and mentioned only this regarding cause of death:

In a post on X, his family announced that Ray died “suddenly and unexpectedly” late last week but didn’t specify the cause...

...Stephanie Wheatley, a spokesperson for Clark County in Nevada where was Ray residing, said it had received a death report of a man matching Ray’s name and age.

I'm a little busy right now, but anyone who wants to pursue this further might try the Clark County NV coroner's page, which will direct you to a PDF that you can perhaps fill out online and ask for more detailed information. Good luck! Let me know if you find out anything.

UPDATE 7 January 2025:

I got a few free moments and decided to send an email to the Clark County NV coroner today, asking for confirmation of James Arthur Ray's death, and inquiring whether cause of death was known yet and if there would be an autopsy. Here's the reply I received:

Hi Connie,

The Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner does not have jurisdiction over this case. I can only confirm the CCOCME did receive a report of a decedent with the name of James Ray, age 67. The date of death was 1/2/25.

Not all deaths in Clark County are CCOCME cases. Some examples of non-coroner cases include those where the decedent was in the long-term care of a doctor and/or had extensive medical history.

I'm guessing there won't be an autopsy, and if he's really deceased there won't be a body to poke, only embers.

I thought it was interesting that according to the email, the report the Clark County coroner's office received said the date of death was January 2, 2025. But brother John's tweet was dated the morning of January 4, and he clearly said that James had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly "last night' -- which would have been January 3, not January 2. It's possible that John was just copying and pasting an earlier message that had actually been written on January 3, and when he posted to James' Xitter feed on January 4 he neglected to edit it to reflect the actual date of death. In any case, Wikipedia has his date of death as January 3, 2025, but the source they cited was probably using the post on James' Xitter feed as a reference.

But to me the main issue is the cause of death, and the mystery continues... And I do need to state that in general I respect a family's right to privacy, especially regarding medical matters. However, when a public figure like Ray brands himself as an expert on physical as well as mental and emotional and spiritual health, and then dies "suddenly and unexpectedly," his public has a right to know what killed him.

Before you leave...
This past year has been a nightmare for me on several counts. While money cannot make some personal nightmares go away, it can make them far easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
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NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

13 years after James Arthur Ray's deadly sweat lodge, cults are still a danger

Today, October 8, 2022, is the 13th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru/cult leader James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers: Kirby Brown and James Shore, and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman. The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona, that also injured dozens of other participants. The phony sweat lodge was the "final challenge" at Ray's pricey "Spiritual Warrior" workshop.

Ray, who had shot to fame following his appearance in the simplistic and crassly materialistic New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

Every year since October 8, 2009, I've commemorated the horror in Sedona on this blog, and this year is no exception. But this year, I'm going to inject some politics into my annual observation, because, unfortunately, cults and cultishness have slithered their way into American (right-wing) politics, and I don't think the threat that they represent can be overstated.

In a way, this is a tale of two Virginias, and I only hope that the Virginia I greatly admire will not be insulted by appearing in the same blog post as the "other" Virginia, for whom I have nothing but contempt. Let's get that "other" V out of the way first.

Virginia Thomas: there and back again -- from cult member, to anti-cult crusader, back to cult member
Today Virginia "Ginni" Thomas is best known as the conspiracy-mongering -- and possibly seditious -- wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence "Long Dong Silver" Thomas. But not everyone is aware that Ginni was once a member of a cult, and at some point became aware that it was a cult, and underwent "deprogramming," after which she became an anti-cult crusader for years.

The cult with which Ginni, then known by her maiden name of Virginia Lamp, was involved was a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT): the now-defunct Lifespring, a product of the "human potential movement" that began in the late 1960s and came to fruition in the 70s and 80s. Lifespring was founded by several colleagues of Werner Erhard, the perpetrator of the even more infamous Erhard Seminars Training, or est (which later became The Forum, which later became Landmark Forum, which later became Landmark Education, which is now Landmark Worldwide).

NBC News was one of several media outlets covering Ginni's journey there and back again. A June 14, 2022 article on the NBC News web site offers a brief summary of what Lifespring was and did (and in the process, I couldn't help but notice, mentions Ray's "sweat lodge").

Lifespring, like NXIVM and “Sweat Lodge Guru” James Arthur Ray’s course that led to three deaths in 2009, are what some experts call Large Group Awareness Trainings, New Age self-help programs that paradoxically promise to deliver almost superhuman mental abilities that can be achieved only through total submission.

Lifespring put inductees through grueling multiday “educational” sessions where they were psychologically broken down. In a 1987 Washington Post exposé of the group, Thomas gave an interview describing one session in which trainees were made to strip down to bathing suits and subjected to body shaming.

“The emphasis was upon abandonment to an undifferentiated, unknowable other,” psychologist Janice Haaken and sociologist Richard Adams wrote in an academic journal article on Lifespring. They participated in a 1981 training in Seattle where they witnessed a man have a psychotic break while organizers berated him, concluding that the impact of the training “was essentially pathological” for even the people who enjoyed the experience.

Several trainees died, including a 27-year-old model who was refused medical attention during an asthma attack, leading to a $450,000 settlement with her family, according to a 1987 article in The Washington Post. The group, which claimed to have trained hundreds of thousands, went defunct in the 1990s after a series of lawsuits.

Following Ginni Lamp's realization that Lifespring was a destructive cult, and her escape/deprogramming, she became a force for good -- for a while, anyway. From the NBC piece cited above:

“When you come away from a cult, you’ve got to find a balance in your life as far as getting involved with fighting the cult or exposing it,” Thomas told attendees at a 1986 Cult Awareness Network panel in Kansas City, Missouri. “And kind of the other angle is getting a sense of yourself and what was it that made you get into that group. And what open questions are there that still need to be answered.”

It’s difficult to reconcile Thomas then and now, four people who worked with her at the height of her anti-cult activism through the late 1980s said in interviews. After she spent years trying to expose cults, these people found Thomas’ efforts to promote outlandish plans to overturn the 2020 results, particularly the text messages and emails in which she referenced false election conspiracies that originated in QAnon circles on the internet, surprising. Democrats and Republicans alike have said QAnon supporters exhibit cult-like behavior.

“Ginni Thomas was out there active in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and then she really went a different path,” said Rick Ross, a prominent expert on cults and a former “deprogrammer” who knew Thomas through their anti-cult activism. “I admire the work she did back in the ‘80s. And she should be given credit for that.”

No disrespect intended to Rick Ross, whose work I've long supported, and I've always been willing to give credit where credit is due, but isn't there a point at which today's awful deeds cancel out yesterday's good ones? In any case, at the risk of overstating the obvious, Ginni Thomas née Lamp is in an even worse cult now -- not just QAnon in particular, as noted by various media outlets that have explored her curious journey, but the Trumpcult in general. Ginni loves her Trump, and apparently the love is returned.

While Ginni Thomas is a high-profile example, her story isn't all that unusual; for many folks, susceptibility to cults and manipulation is apparently a lifelong condition, somewhat like traditional recovery circles claim is the case with alcoholism and other drug addictions. In my previous post, and in a different though related context, I quoted myself quoting my pal Jason "Salty Droid" Jones, but I think another quotation of a quotation of a quotation is in order here.

...None of this is really surprising.... As my pal Salty Droid has both documented on his blog and has mentioned in private correspondence, quitting one manipulative scam or scammer doesn't cure one of the thinking pattern errors that got them sucked in in the first place. "Manipulation causes susceptibility to manipulation as a side effect," sez Salty.

Indeed. A July 24, 2022 piece on the Business Insider site not only suggests that Ginni Thomas has "fallen back into old habits" but also offers some insight from cult expert Steven Hassan, himself a former cult member who worked with Ginni back in her anti-cult activism days. Hassan said he actually wasn't surprised by Ginni's apparent infatuation with QAnon.

"Ginni Thomas was in a cult, and anyone who has ever been in a cult is vulnerable to another cult if they haven't properly counseled and done their homework," Hassan said...

..."I haven't called [Ginni Thomas] stupid or crazy, which the media does, because I know that she's been unduly influenced into these beliefs. She's a very intelligent, educated person, but her brain has been hacked," [Hassan] claimed. 

With all due respect to Steven Hassan, while Ginni is almost certainly not stupid, she is, in my unprofessional opinion, bat-crap crazy.

Unfortunately, she's far from the only American who believes in QAnon's batty conspiracy narratives. A PRRI Report from February of this year revealed that nearly one in five Americans in general, and one in four republicans in particular, still believe in QAnon conspiracy theories. And Americans who most trust far-right "news" are nearly five times more likely to be QAnon believers than those who lean towards mainstream news media. It would be all be merely humorous, were it not for the fact that this deep toxic ocean of irrationality threatens to drown American democracy.

So you really can't talk about cults in general without injecting a little bit of politix in the mix.

Virginia Brown: turning profound grief into a force for good
Now we come to the Virginia I admire: Virginia "Ginny" Brown, mother of one of James Arthur Ray's death lodge victims, Kirby Brown.

The families and friends of the four people killed by Ray have all learned to cope with their losses in their own ways. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus.

Given the context of this post, I should probably emphasize that SEEK Safely is not a partisan political organization, the only connection with politics being an ongoing campaign for responsible legislation to rein in the self-help industry. Nor, contrary to what some might expect, is the organization anti-self-help. Rather, its message and mission center around empowerment, in the best sense of that egregiously overused word, i.e., by helping people make informed decisions when choosing to go the self-help-seminar route. I urge you to visit the SEEK Safely site, which is continually expanding. You will find a wealth of useful information, as well as opportunities to get involved if you're so inclined.

Yet another way the Brown family found to come to terms with Kirby's death, while helping many other people who are dealing with profound loss and pain, was through the 2020 memoir, This Sweet Life: How We Lived After Kirby Died, by Ginny and her younger daughter Jean. It is truly a lovely and haunting book, which I read shortly after it came out and have yet to keep my commitment to fully review here -- but never mind my own negligence; I urge you to read the book.

Before I wrap this up I also want to make the distinction between self-help cults (or cultlike organizations) and the whole QAnon/Trumpcult phenomenon, particularly regarding their respective followers. I think that many if not most of the people who get sucked in, to the point of harm, by charismatic self-help gurus have good intentions themselves, despite the malevolent intentions of the "leaders" they look up to, and that their original motivation for becoming involved is simply to improve their lives in some way. (This of course applies to those who get involved voluntarily and not because they were required to do so by employers or coerced by loved ones.) Many LGAT attendees are highly educated, high-achieving, even adventurous souls who like to challenge themselves and be challenged. Even Ginni Lamp Thomas, who was highly educated when she got into Lifespring, was reportedly drawn to the LGAT by a desire to improve her life.

QAnon, on the other hand, attracts a wide range of fringe "thinkers" and nutcakes, many of whom aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, and it's also a convenient weapon wielded by power-hungry cynics who don't actually believe the wackadoodle conspiracy theories pushed by Q but are all too happy to exploit the gullibility of those who do believe. Unlike many LGATs, and for that matter the Trumpcult, QAnon doesn't have a single specific high-profile cult leader at the helm, but the conspiranoid narratives pushed by Q advocates are in many ways more destructive than anything any LGAT guru could wreak. And the Trumpcult, which is fed by and feeds into the Q cult, poses an even greater danger than Q alone.

That said, it would be a mistake to underestimate the danger of self-help cults led by malignant narcissists. Like James Arthur Ray, for instance.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as the Spiritual Warrior travesty that culminated in the death lodge would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. Though he has been struggling to make a comeback since his release from prison, framing the whole Sedona thing as a super-major trial and tribulation for him, his audience has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

Today Ray merrily tweeted about something he calls "Steps to the Economy of Mind #5," which is apparently part of his "Modern Alchemy" shtick. He advises, "ONLY put things in your mind that cause YOU to improve." Spoken like a true narcissist. He didn't even mention the death lodge anniversary, not that I would expect him to, since putting that thought in his mind and out in the Twitterverse would most likely not cause him -- or his bottom line -- to improve, at least not by his definition of improvement. In any case, today's tweet, like most of his nuggets of wisdumb on Twitter, has earned very few likes, and zero responses so far. Even so, James Arthur Ray still has a fan base, and as long as he is in the business, he remains a danger, no matter how minor that danger may seem at the moment.

The takeaway: Whether it's a McSpirituality/selfish-help cult or a far-right political one, cults remain a threat. Do what you can to protect yourself and those you care about from their influence. (And make sure you're registered to vote, if you're eligible.)

And... never forget.

Related musings from the Whirled archives:

• March 2010: Self-help regulation: necessary safeguard, or Nanny-state nonsense?
  A long (and long-ago) post that explores questions raised in the wake of the death lodge debacle, regarding the need to regulate the self-help industry. Of particular interest for overall context of the "human potential movement": the segment under the subhead, "Going back in time: a little 'historical perspective." Several of the links are no longer active, but this is, after all, the Internet, and 2010 was a long time ago.
• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings
  Another long post, published on the one-year anniversary of Sedona and doubling as a review of former James Ray follower Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle.

Jimmy Ray Deathlodge is going to Disney World to preach to GIN faithful

Yes, the rumor reported here the other day is true: James Arthur "Death" Ray is indeed going to be the keynoter at the upcoming Global Information Network (GIN) Family Reunion at Disney World October 16-18, 2015. That stellar event takes place the week following the six-year anniversary of the infamous Death Lodge in Sedona, Arizona, which resulted in the deaths of three people: Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman. (Another follower of Ray's, Colleen Conaway, had died at a San Diego Ray event the previous July, but her death was covered up and didn't really come out in the open until the sweat lodge story broke.) If you have the stomach to do so, you can read all about Ray's GIN debut in the September 2015 GIN Report, which features Ray's mug on the front cover. Not his mug shot, of course -- his post-prison, hot-on-the-comeback-trail mug.

The Ray "interview" is on pages 4 and 5. Here's how it starts out:

GIN Report: What is one accomplishment that you consider the most significant of your life/career?
JAR: Certainly I've been fortunate to accomplish many things from being an Inc. 500 inductee 2009, a New York Times bestselling author, frequent guest on Oprah, Larry King, The Today Show and more. I'm grateful for all of them. But properly understood, these are all the effects of the greatest accomplishment I believe I have experienced in my life which is finding my unique gifts and genius and clearly defining my purpose which has allowed me to face great adversity and turn it into opportunity. Take so-called failure and turn it into fuel.

And it just continues on the same note throughout. Spoiler alert: Not one mention in the interview of the killings and the cage time.

Though the news of Ray as a GIN keynoter is profoundly disgusting it is not unexpected, since as I've noted more than once on this blog, GIN founder, infomercial huckster and now-imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie) and James Ray have been publicly stroking each other off for years. Trudeau publicly defended Ray a few years ago, and Ray returned the favor by pushing GIN while he was in prison.

In case someone wants to point out to me that Trudeau is no longer at the helm of GIN, let me first say that it's obvious you haven't been on this blog very much. If you had, you would know that I'm very well aware that GIN was sold last year to a group of investors who just happen to be long-time buddies and business partners -- and are still fans and defenders -- of Trudeau. You might even call them proxies, and you might not be wrong. And Katie's famous line, "Who do you listen to?" is still being pushed by GIN CEO Troy McClain, aka "T-Mac" (I am not making this nickname up).



Apparently one of the people Troy and friends want you to listen to is Death Ray.

And that in a nutshell is what makes Scamworld so insidious. As Salty Droid wrote in a 2012 post (and yes, I've quoted this before, but here it is again):

GIN doesn’t exist :: it’s the lipstick on the pig … after you wash it off with a hose that whore pig is going to tart right back up. It’s the pigs involved that need to be stopped if anything is going to be stopped … not the shell corporate entities organized in the name of young Ukrainian wives...

You nailed it (as usual), Jason.

Meanwhile, the GIN MLM is back in place, as I'd mentioned a couple of times over the past year or so. I hadn't visited the page with the details in a while but did the other day. They never really took the references to the program off of their "legal disclosures" page, and the "referral bonus" program has been in place for some time now. But they've expanded it and announced the revamped program at the Dream Weekend in June 2015.

If you have 30-plus minutes to waste hearing very long-term Katie buddy and GIN co-owner Blaine Athorn bloviate about "sharing" GIN, by all means watch the video on this page. Drinking game: Every time Blaine mentions your "fellow human beings on Planet Earth"... toss one back for me.

The dollar amounts are still smaller than they were back in GIN's heyday with Katie, of course, and the promises have been tamped down a bit (at one point Blaine Athorn mentions in passing that the GIN referral program is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it can make you wealthier). And the "cash money" rewards are relatively modest, with most of the "rewards" being GIN Bogus Dollars. Oops, I mean GIN BONUS dollars.

But clearly, the hustle is still on.

And clearly, there are still no neat and tidy endings in Scamworld. The big sick machine just goes on, and on, and on.
Update 8 September 2015: I just found out about this live Death Ray event coming up on Friday, September 11 in Phoenix.

Ray is hosting "a night of solutions" where he will "sit down, no pitch, no script...armed only with his intellect, his vast experience and the wisdom" to mentor and "reveal to you the answers to the things that are holding you back," according to his website. 

I'd actually gone to Ray's site a couple of times over the past week to see if there was any mention of his keynote appearance at the GIN event, but I overlooked this one. The copy on the site is pretty disgusting, especially when you consider how pricey the former incarnation of his "World Wealth" shtick was. (You can read about that here, and much more about it in Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona. It floors me that he is starting this scam up again.) Meanwhile, there's this this:

You Asked, James Is Answering! 

With the launch of The World Wealth Summit just Around the Corner…

With the Cancellation of a LIVE Event… [apparently it was "Life Unleashed Live" ~CLS]

With a Recent Gallup Poll Showing 71% of people surveyed are bored, unhappy and disengaged…

You Need a Night of Solutions
from James Arthur Ray!

If you had tickets to Life Unleashed LIVE – YOUR SEAT IS FREE!
Guests without tickets, it’s a steal, so BRING YOUR BEST QUESTIONS
and get your seat for ONLY $197! 

This may NEVER happen again…
An Entire Evening of Q & A with James Arthur Ray!

BE THERE, GET OUT AND STAY OUT OF THE 71% CLUB WITH THE WISDOM OF JAMES ARTHUR RAY! 

There's no specific indication of where the event will be, beyond the fact that it will be in Phoenix, Arizona, from 6:00-9:00 PM. But the first (and most expensive) hotel listed in conjunction with the event is the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort (from $150 a night). So it's possible the event itself will be there.

Tom McFeeley, cousin of Death Lodge victim Kirby Brown, told ABC-15 News (KNXV-TV Phoenix) that he found out about the event via email. He is on Ray's list so he can keep tabs on him. McFeeley said that for Ray "To go to Arizona particularly is really thumbing your nose at the community, at the state, at the good people in that area. So it's all disgusting."

But this isn't the first time Ray has been back to Arizona for an event since his release from prison in 2013. He held an event in Phoenix earlier this year. I guess he just loves Arizona.

McFeeley -- and the reporters working on the story -- did take this opportunity to once again publicize the non-profit started by the Brown family, Seek Safely, whose purpose is to educate people about how to safely participate in the self-help industry. So I too will take that opportunity again, and will also note once again that none of the industry giants invited to sign the Seek Safely Promise has signed. Here are the people who have signed -- good folks, I'm sure, but not the most prominent in the industry.

It's really all about choosing one's teachers wisely, and anyone who chooses James Arthur Ray as a teacher is not making a wise choice at all. Wake up, people. Please.

Update, February 2016
It occurred to me that I never did a followup regarding Ray's GIN Family Ruin presentation and how it was received and reported by GIN. Well, here you go (as usual, click on pics to enlarge):

Those screen grabs are from the November 2015 GIN Report. You can avail yourself of the entire issue by clicking here. Not only will you get the scoop on Death Ray's inspiring talk, including the parts that really resonated with the GINtendees, but you'll also get a special letter from a very bloated-looking Troy McClain, who reminds us that November is a special time to cherish the "blessing of Family." He did not mention the possibility that for the Brown, Shore, Neuman and Conaway families, Thanksgiving and all holidays are especially painful.